It Is But The Beginning
by CornishGirl
Summary: Tag to S10 x 03, "Soul Survivor." Despite appearances, the battle for Dean's humanity is far from over . . . and Sam is just realizing it. A temporary fix is not a true cure for Dean, any more than borrowed grace is a cure for Castiel.


_A/N: Tag to 10 x 03, "Soul Survivor." As most of us are, I'm still processing the episode. There will be more to my story, but this is the first foray into my take on a potential outcome of the battle for Dean's humanity. I think it's far from over._

**It Is But The Beginning**

He paced, because he had to. He could not remain still. Much as he wished to collapse upon the bed, too much was at war in his body.

His mouth said one thing through the jumble in his brain caused by the overstimulation of purified blood. But his mind knew another.

He wasn't cured. He wasn't normal. He wasn't _Dean_.

They desired him to be, his brother and the angel. Perhaps believed him to be. But he was not.

_Not_.

He was afire with contradictions in mind and body. So tired, so drained, so hungry, but so alive with impulses, with needs he could not entirely identify. He merely knew he wasn't whole. Not yet.

_Not._

His body would not allow him release. Whereas before, with the First Blade at hand, he could reach for and find calm, all was taken from him. Crowley had the Blade, and Sam had fed him purified human blood.

What was he, now?

The Mark. The Mark was all.

In abeyance, for now. Sam had accomplished that. But even as the purified blood boiled within his veins, overtaking the _otherness_ of what he had been, he knew he wasn't cured.

_It _knew he wasn't cured.

The faintest trace of laughter sounded in his head. _You think you're whole? You think you're human? Think again. This is merely a rest stop on a very long journey_. _Let them believe. It amuses me. _

Duality. He, as human, had been MIA, drowned by the needs of the Mark, the power of something far more dominant than he might ever be. It was alpha over him.

The Mark was all.

_Let them believe. You know better._

He paced, because he could not still himself. Up and down the hallways, through the library, beside the map table. And in one hallway he saw the detritus, the remains of a door he had taken apart with hammer and boot.

_What I'm going to do to you, Sammy, well—that ain't gonna be mercy, either._

But Sam had won that battle. Because of Castiel.

He paused in his pacing. His body stilled.

Dean would never hurt Sam. But the Mark—oh yes, the Mark would. The Mark desired it.

He—_it_—had used the force-fed human blood to effect an escape. Sigel-etched handcuffs, an iron Devil's Trap embedded in the floor, could not contain a human. And Sam had made him that.

But temporarily. Blood replenished itself. The cycle continued. In a matter of days, the taint of purification would wash itself out. He—_it_—would be whole again.

The human body, once more, would be something other than Dean.

But Sam was the threat. Sam was the danger. No one else in the world, in heaven or in hell, knew Dean as Sam did.

# # #

The call echoed through the bunker. "Dean? Dean—I've got food!"

Sam. Sam was back.

The odor of beef, of bread, of onions and salted potatoes, turned him from aimless pacing.

"Dean?"

Sam didn't know where he was.

_You can hide, _the Mark said,_ or you can kill him now. He believes._

And the first trace of concern sounded in the voice. "Dean?"

He exited the hallway. Sam had come down the staircase, stood now on what was, in the bunker, ground level. Still hampered by the arm sling, he cradled paper bags against his chest. And when he saw his brother, relief was palpable.

_He believes_.

Dean smiled. The hunger was normal. It wasn't the Mark for the moment but all Dean, desiring comfort food.

Sam was clearly relieved as he saw his brother. He crossed the expanse of gleaming marble floor to the slab of polished oak table, set down the bags. "Beer? Or whiskey?"

Dean approached the table. He looked at the bags, looked up at his brother. "Blood," he said.

Sam's startlement was obvious. The shift in his eyes moved from pleasure, from satisfaction that he had brought home something that would please his hungry brother, the man he believed to be his brother, to something else.

Sam was no longer . . . Sam. He, too, had been changed. The Mark affected him even as it affected his brother. And he grasped it, did Sam; understood now, in this frozen moment, that perhaps there was no true cure after all.

That the battle had just begun.

~ end ~


End file.
